Scarnati: Corbett Needs To Set "Clear Parameters" On Impact Fee.

Gov. Tom Corbett needs to set “clear parameters” for what it will take for him to sign an impact fee on Marcellus shale natural gas drillers, the state Senate’s top Republican said Thursday.

In a wide-ranging interview, Senate President Joe Scarnati, R-Jefferson, also said he believes it’ll be hard to muster the votes in the Senate for a shale fee unless at least part of the money goes to statewide programs.

The northwestern Pennsylvania Republican also told reporters that he thinks a growing push to privatize Pennsylvania’s state-owned liquor stores is at the bottom of his to-do list doing this fall’s legislative session, finishing behind such hot-button issues as legislative and congressional redistricting and approval of school choice legislation.

And he said it’ll take “statesmen” to come up with the $2.7 billion in new revenue that another administration study commission says is needed to fix Pennsylvania’s crumbling network of roads and bridges.

Debate on an impact fee ground to a halt during last month’s debate over the state budget after Corbett threatened a gubernatorial veto if lawmakers sent him an impact fee bill before the administration’s own Marcellus Shale study commission submitted a final report now due to be made public on Friday.

The commission, chaired by Lt. Gov. Jim Cawley, voted last week to recommend an impact fee that sets aside most of its money for local and county governments in drilling country – a position supported by Corbett, who has said he’d oppose any fee that sends money to Harrisburg.

Scarnati, whose district is in drilling country, and who authored a fee bill that sets aside money for statewide environmental and infrastructure spending, told reporters he believes that “you’re going to find some difficulty moving ahead with a straight impact fee and not with any statewide remediation.

“Call it an environmental program, call it Growing Greener,” he said, referring to the state’s long-running environmental clean-up and preservation law. “But there … are real needs in the Commonwealth and it may not all be where drilling is taking place.”

When it comes to selling off the state’s more than 600 retail liquor stores, Scarnati, a former restaurant owner, said he’s not convinced the state has a clear idea of how much it can get for the system. Past estimates have pegged the proceeds of an up-front sale of licenses at $1.5 billion to $2 billion.

“I’d like to see what the revenues are if we take the handcuffs off [the Liquor Control Board],” he said, as he recommended giving the agency the flexibility to vary its pricing and required, 30 percent mark-ups.

“I will guarantee you that if you increase the bottom line, you will increase what you would get from selling it,” he said.